Lower East Side Man Sentenced to 40 Years to Life in Prison for Murder and Gun Possession in Decades-Old Dispute That Started in China

Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 46-year-old man has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for murder and criminal possession of a weapon for the 2015 fatal shooting of a 68-year-old man in Sunset Park.

Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “This was a particularly egregious and senseless murder – an elderly man who had done nothing wrong was shot in cold blood over an old dispute oceans away of which he had no part. This defendant was caught on video stalking, following and, finally, shooting this innocent victim to death in the street. Today’s lengthy sentence is just, given the horrific nature of this crime.”

The Acting District Attorney identified the defendant as Wu Long Chen, 46, of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog to 25 years to life in prison for his conviction on one count of second-degree murder and 15 years in prison for his conviction on one count of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. The judge ordered the sentences to run consecutive to one another. The defendant was convicted in June following a jury trial.

The Acting District Attorney said that, according to trial testimony, on December 7, 2015, at approximately 9:35 p.m., the defendant followed the victim after he left the wedding reception of a mutual friend, held at the Golden Imperial Palace restaurant on Sixth Avenue in Sunset Park. Both men had attended the wedding, but were seated at different tables.

The defendant was captured on surveillance video following the victim to Seventh Avenue and 61st Street, where he shot the victim in the head, chest and arm. When his gun jammed, the defendant dropped it and fled the scene. The victim walked into a Popeye’s Chicken restaurant, where he collapsed. He was taken by ambulance to Lutheran Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The victim, Ying Guan Chen, 68, was the father of the defendant’s former neighbors in China. Wu Long and the victim’s sons had heated arguments, decades ago in China, about Wu Long’s family building an additional floor to their property that hovered over the victim’s family’s home. Ultimately, there was a physical altercation between both families which, according to the defendant, resulted in a serious injury to one of his relatives. The defendant harbored a grudge, according to testimony, and since he couldn’t find the victim’s sons he sought retribution by killing the victim instead, even though he had no involvement in the dispute.

The defendant fled New York and was captured in Laredo, Texas on December 31, 2015, as he tried to make his way to Mexico.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Howard Jackson, Deputy Chief of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, and Senior Assistant District Attorney Lauren Silver, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Timothy Gough, Homicide Bureau Chief.